The Palestinian National Authority has requested that a total of 2,000 prisoners be freed from the 10,000 Palestinians currently being held in Israeli prisons. The list of the prisoners to be released does not include those who have links with the deaths of Israeli nationals.
The release of Palestinian prisoners by Israel is widely seen as an effort to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement currently in a power struggle with the radical Islamist group Hamas, which took control over the Gaza Strip in a bloody conflict in June.
This will be the only goodwill gesture prior to the Annapolis summit aimed at resuming Israeli-Palestinian dialogue after a seven-year break and which is expected to result in a framework agreement outlining the principles for a peace settlement.
Palestinians have repeatedly called on Israel to dismantle more than 500 roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank, which limit the movement of goods and people in the occupied territory. Israel has refused citing security grounds.
On November 13, Israeli President Shimon Peres is expected to meet with Abbas at the Ankara Forum, in Turkey, to try an ease tensions ahead of the U.S summit.
"One of the major issues on the agenda of the upcoming negotiations in Ankara will be Turkey's possible mediation in the Middle East peace process," Peres said in an interview with NTV, a privately-owned Turkish TV broadcaster.
